All Because of a Haunted House
by PeaceLoveAndCheese
Summary: In which John Watson doesn't like haunted houses, but Mike Stamford is too compelling, as always. Complete... for now. College!AU


**YAY! SHERLOCK! AND HALLOWEEN! :D**

***This is probably not what most of my readers wanted to see, but oh well. I was hit with a tumblr prompt and couldn't resist.**

**NOT BRIT-PICKED, SO I APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCORRECT TERMINOLOGY.**

**This is actually based off an occurrence that happened when my friends and I went to a haunted house a few weeks ago. No one was hurt, but one of them did manage to loose their glasses in the middle of a forest after running into a guy dressed like a mime... we all had to play dead in the grass on the side of the trail so other groups coming by could still be scared. Impromptu acting is the greatest!**

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Sherlock. Not even Sherlock AUs. Well, the legality on that might be a bit flexible... **

3Spooky, 5Me

John really hadn't wanted to go to the haunted house.

For one thing, he didn't like haunted houses. Which he had told his friends. Three times. Within ten minutes. But they insisted, and half a beer and half an hour later, Mike Stamford was pulling his crowded SUV into a parking spot, and the group of uni students were piling out, laughing excitedly.

The queue was long, and John almost suggested they leave and come back another day... like a day when he had an exam the next morning and sadly couldn't make it. Yeah. No one fell for it, and John remained in line, juggling his money nervously from hand to hand.

A hand fell on his shoulder, and he jumped.

"Whoa, John!" Mike said, chuckling and pushing his glasses back up his nose. "Calm down!"

"I don't like haunted houses," John muttered. Again.

"It'll be fun!" Sally Donovan insisted, grinning as she wrangled her dark curls into a messy bun.

John lifted an eyebrow.

"Come on," Mike said. "When was the last time you went to a haunted house?"

"When I was thirteen."

"See? Long time ago. It'll be a lot more fun now!"

Before John could protest, the queue moved forwards, and he was forced to pay and take the ticket handed to him.

The group was ushered into a dark room that smelled of wet earth and metal. A woman wearing bunny ears grinned and took their tickets.

"Are you all ready for..." she paused dramatically. "The DEMON MANSION?!"

The rest of John's group cheered, but John could only manage a sarcastic murmur.

"Alright, rules!" The woman clapped her hands together. "Stay in your group, don't wander off the trail, have fun, and _don't touch the actors._" The last part was emphasized strongly as she waved a teasing finger at them. "They won't touch you, so please return the favor. Everybody ready?" Another affirmative cheer, and the woman ushered them through.

Immediately, spooky music filled the dark hallway that was glowing a dim red color. John's group herded themselves into a single file line, the girls clutching onto the guys' shoulders, and the guys teasing them. John stayed silent at the back of the line.

A couple of actors popped out at them around the corner and cackled maniacally. The girls squealed and shoved the boys in front of them as they rolled their eyes and laughed.

The group moved into another room as a door rattled and suddenly, a screaming psycho guy dressed in a serial killer mask burst out, waving a chainsaw. Everyone screamed, and sprinted for the next room. John felt his heart rate speed up as he dashed after the others.

They ran through the haunted house, shrieking and laughing as actors jumped out at them from every corner, and plastic creepy things fell from the ceiling. John followed, mostly in silence, eyes wide and pretty much too freaked out to make any noise. He was so focused on the people in front of him, that he didn't notice when a hand attempted to grab his ankle from under a drape attached to the wall, and he went down hard, scrambling up again, and running from that hallway, but it was too late.

His friends had continued through the haunted house, leaving John standing alone in a very dimly lit room, the sound of their screams echoing behind them.

"Um..." John said, his voice cracking a bit, but making him feel infinitely better. "Guys?"

No answer, except for the creaking of floorboards and the scraping of... something across the floor.

John's hands curled into fists, and he called out again. "Hello?"

Nothing... except for someone breathing softly behind him.

John whirled around just in time for a figure to leap out of the shadows and scream at full-fledged volume into his face.

After than, everything kind of blurred together. All John remembered was his fist swinging up of it's own accord, hitting something with a loud _crack_, and the actor in front of him screaming in pain and dropping to the floor, clutching his face.

The blur of red around John's vision faded as his breathing slowed and he felt his expression change as the reality of the situation sank in.

"Oh, my God!" John said, dropping to his knees next to the guy who was rolling around on the floor. "I am so sorry! Are you alright?"

"Nf, m'not a'right! Ew broke m'nse!" The person's speech was muffled through his hands. "Go 'way!"

John rolled his eyes, grabbed the guy's wrists and pulled his hands away. "I'm a med student, let me see."

The guy protested loudly and glared at John. He had a rapidly forming bruise on his face and around his eye, coupled with a long cut running along the length of his cheekbone, bleeding into his stage makeup, but seemed otherwise okay.

"Well, I didn't break your nose, for one thing," John said, sitting back onto his ankles. "You should be alright. Did you black out at all?"

The guy shook his head, and tried to sit up, wincing as he did. "No thanks to you."

"I apologized!" John said.

"Yes, well, even that was substandard," the guy said, brushing black curls from his face and merely managing to succeed in smearing makeup and blood up towards his hairline. "Now, if you'll excuse me..." He trailed off as the sound of screaming echoed from the opposite direction. "The next group! Damn it!" He squinted at John lopsidedly and motioned for him to go, folding long legs underneath him to get to his feet. "I can't do my job if you're here! Go!"

John scrambled upwards. "But-" He jumped forwards as the young man suddenly pitched to his right, swaying as John caught him by the arm. "Alright, you are definitely less okay than I thought. Crap."

"M'fine," the other man said, leaning drunkenly on John's shoulder.

"Yeah, no, you're not," John said, wrapping his arm around the man's thin torso and bringing his arm up to go around John's shoulders. "Come on, we're leaving."

"Door..." the man muttered as the voices around the corner came closer. "On your right."

John looked over and saw a thin crack of light protruding from behind a black curtain. He stepped towards it, dragging his new injured friend towards it, pushing it open and slipping through just as the next group came laughing into the room.

He found himself outside in the cool, dark air behind the "HAUNTED MANSION," and looked around in satisfaction. "Alright, where's First Aid?"

***SHERLOCK* *SHERLOCK* *SHERLOCK* **

John dug his hands deeper into his coat pockets and sighed, breath fogging in the October air.

He was standing outside of the First Aid tent, waiting for the young man he had "accidentally" punched in the face. Most people would've just left, especially when their new acquaintance had called them "a waste of space, intelligence, and a detriment to society" before staggering into the tent and knocking over a table full of supplies, swearing loudly.

But John had decided the least he could do, especially after almost breaking a guy's jawbone.

Speaking of which, at that moment, he came out of the tent, a plaster across his cheekbone. He had changed into jeans, a white t-shirt, knit scarf, and a long overcoat, with the stage makeup washed off his face, revealing alabaster skin and grey-blue eyes that widened upon sight of John. "You!"

John held up his hands. "Look. I'm sorry. Very sorry. And I thought I should wait out here until I saw you were alright."

The man sniffed. "I'm fine. Your concern is noted, but unnecessary." He turned to go, coat flapping around his ankles.

"Wait!" John said, grabbing his arm. "Um... I thought I should... make it up to you. Y'know, since I... punched you in the face and all." He winced, remembering the loudly shouted conversation that was yelled at him by the woman from the front about _not touching the actors_.

In his defense, he had said he didn't want to go into the haunted house.

"At least tell me your name," John offered.

The young man contemplated him, then sighed, and held out a hand. "Sherlock Holmes."

John took it, and grinned. "John Watson."

"I would say the pleasure is all mine, but... well..." Sherlock gestured to his face, his lips twitching upwards.

"Yeah..." John stuck his hands back in his pocket, shuffling his feet along the ground. "Did I mention I was sorry?"

"Yes," Sherlock said, touching a hand to his face and flinching in pain.

"Don't do that," John scolded. Sherlock merely raised an eyebrow, and John fell silent.

They stood in the cold night air for a while, before Sherlock rolled his eyes and reaching into his pocket, pulling out car keys. "If you're going to insist on hanging about, we might as well do it somewhere warm."

"Coffee?" John suggested, because a hot cup of caffeine was precisely what he needed at the moment.

Sherlock thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Why not?" He flipped his keys around in his hand and started for a black vehicle parked in the employee parking lot.

John trotted after him, but stopped when Sherlock placed his hand against the car door, pressing his other palm to his forehead, teeth clenched. "You okay?"

"Fine," Sherlock ground out, his hands trembling.

John took the car keys from him, and ushered him to the passenger side. "I'm driving."

"No," Sherlock protested weakly, fumbling with the seatbelt as John got in on the other side and slid the keys into the ignition, starting the car and rolling out of the parking lot.

"Where do you live?"

Sherlock glanced at him through half-lidded eyes. "I thought that there was going to be coffee."

"Not for you," John said, flipping the turn signal and pulling out into traffic. "You're going home and putting ice on your face, then getting some sleep."

"I go to Oxford," Sherlock muttered, slumping further down in his seat. "Baker Hall, Dorm 221b."

"Really?" John asked, surprised. "I live in Bart's. Just across campus."

"Fascinating," Sherlock mumbled, uninterested, pressing his hand to his temples.

"What're you studying," John asked, trying to keep Sherlock's mind off of his headache.

"Forensic sciences and criminology," Sherlock muttered.

"Then how did you end up as an actor in a haunted house, of all places?" John asked, incredulous.

"I stole a microscope from the chemistry lab," Sherlock said, smiling slightly. "And then broke it trying to measure the light fluctuations and electrostatics of certain fibrous materials."

John pursed his lips. "I'm not sure I want to know how you managed that."

"You really don't," Sherlock said, lapsing back into silence.

They drove the rest of the way to the parking of Baker Hall in quiet, Sherlock sometimes shifting and squinting against the street lights, his nearly white face illuminated in their glow. John tried to drive gently, and felt rather accomplished pulling into a parking space near the front door.

Sherlock got out of the car first and waited, pale and shivering, for John to hand him his keys before turning to opening the door of the building, long coat hanging limply now.

"Are you sure you'll be alright?" John asked, not really wanting to leave a shaky Sherlock alone to climb two flights of stairs.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Honestly, John, are you always this mother hennish?"

"Only when I'm the one who wounds people."

"Had a lot of experience with that, have you?"

John shrugged. "Enough. I'm not exactly in control of my reflexes."

"You'd be good in a fight, that's for sure," Sherlock commented as he pulled the door to his building open.

John stared at him. "Did you just tell me I should actually _try _to hurt people?"

"Of course not," Sherlock scoffed. "When you put it that way, it sounds much more crude. I was merely suggesting you use your skills for the greater good, rather than punching actors who are simply trying to pay off their own crimes."

"I said I was sorry!"

"Yes," Sherlock sighed, "And it was appreciated. Goodnight, John."

"Are you positive you'll be fine to get up there alone?"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "I said I would be, John, and I'm usually a man of my word." A second passed, and then Sherlock let out a breath and held the door open for John to duck under his arm and enter the building. "Very well, if you insist. I suppose letting you escort my perfectly capable self up a few flights wouldn't harm anyone. Besides," he said as they started up the stairs to 221b, "I've been looking for a roommate."


End file.
